Life

Life sure gets in the way of my blogging…sometimes. Other times I cannot wait to be able to blog about whatever happened to inspire me.

Today, the snow is inspiring.

It has come down as fast, tiny flakes and as slow, fat flakes. So mesmerizing at times. I need to get outside to take pictures! I should also take photos of the “lovely” orange snow fence I helped hubby put up last night. In the freezing rain. Ugh. But I managed to land a few snowballs. He was quite snippy about letting me know he was not happy about them. I figured if I was going to be out in the cold, I might as well have some fun! Obviously, hubby did not see it that way.

I love the snow. I love to watch it, I love to make snow angels in it, I love to craft it into snowballs, and I love riding a snowmobile through it. Hubby is still looking for another sled for me (he sold his old one that I rode last season), so until then we only have one. But it is a fast one! I rode it by myself for about 7 minutes last year and thought that it might be too much machine for me! Yet it is a lot of fun. (Last year it belonged to an acquaintance of hubby’s, but that man decided to buy something even newer.) I found that I really like to go fast. : ) It is quite exhilarating to feel that you might almost fall off.

Winter memories…

I can remember as a kid, when my dad would gang up on the three of us kids for a snowball fight. Funny how one man can so easily defend himself against two or three kids. We would try to sneak up on him, but he was always ready.

And when we would go over to my grandparents’ house to go sledding. If it was at night, Grampa would have a bonfire going for us. They had a big (to us at that time) hill next to the house, or we would take the runner sleds out on the dirt road. Amazingly enough, no one was ever hurt on the road. My cousin Rob intentionally ran me over once, but other than that, I do not believe there were other accidents. (I do remember my brother about walloped Rob, too. I suppose only Bubba could beat on his sister…) And there was always hot chocolate waiting for us when we were through sledding.

My dad would use his skid loader to plow, and he would also pile up snow for us to build snow forts. Now, my brother would actually draw out plans for snow forts. The end product never quite looked like the plan, but it was still pretty cool. He would let me help in building it, but once construction was complete, I was usually booted out. (Especially when his friends were over.) He always build tunnels, which was fun. And had a stockpile of snowballs. Of which I was usually the target. (Same with his slingshot and clay balls, but that is another story.) I wonder if my mom ever painted a bullseye on my coats? Anyhoo, we always had fun. And then the dog would come and use it for a toilet. *sigh* Remember, “Never eat yellow snow!”

My mom would give us spray bottles of colored water to use on our snow sculptures. I wonder if she still has the photos somewhere…One year someone made a turtle. I remember I just liked to spray all the colors on my mounded blobs of snow. More artistic, right? All of us would troop outside to build and color.

On my parents’ property is a couple marshes. One year she bought ice skates for Bubba and I (from Goodwill). Well, we had to try them out! So Bubba and I hiked back to the marshes with our red plastic snow shovels and scouted out an area that would accomodate an ice rink. Now, my mom had warned us about playing on the ice. Basically, that we were not supposed to be out there. Yet, where else could we use our skates? We were safe (for the most part), and cleared off a good-sized area for hockey. We sure had a lot of fun out there! One of those rare moments when Bubba and I were not fighting. We also liked to hike around on the ice. And it was just my luck to be the one to fall through one time. Bubba is about ten or so feet away from me (using my dad’s hatchett to chop through ice; I think he was checking for thickness), laughing and no help whatsoever. Everytime I tried to put my hands down to pull myself up, the ice broke. Needless to say, a coat and pair of snowpants that reek of pond water are not easy to hide from your mother. We received another lecture about going out on the ice.

I am so glad that I have so many good (and interesting) memories from my childhood. Now I want to dig through photos to find some of my childhood’s winters.